


Front Row Seat

by Blu (BluBooThalassophile)



Series: Of Lore & Legend [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Labyrinth (1986), The Mummy Series
Genre: F/M, POV Susan Pevensie, Susan Pevensie Never Forgot, Susan Pevensie-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluBooThalassophile/pseuds/Blu
Summary: Susan's been many people and she's been no one at all through her long life; a sister, a friend, a symbol, a hero, a queen, a savior, a villain, a rebel, a seductress, a starlet, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a nonbeliever and a believer. And now she watches over her granddaughter and grandson as they grow into this world.
Relationships: Alex O'Connell/Susan Pevensie
Series: Of Lore & Legend [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081364
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Front Row Seat

There were days she placed her rouge and mascara, and she could hardly remember what it was like before. There were days, though she would look into the mirror and think to herself that it was all wrong.

She had survived though, she was here, and wrong or not, fair or not, it was what was, as much as she despised it.

Since her birth in 1928 she had never been alone or left alone. She was a younger sister and an older sibling, she had duties, responsibilities, and expectations. As a second sibling she was responsible for the care of the family.

In September of 1939 she and her siblings were evacuated from London to the countryside to stay in a mansion with a professor friend of her father’s who had volunteered to take them in. They were supposed to be safe, now that they were out of the Blitz zone. Nothing was supposed to happen to them. And though Narnia was fun, their return had brought them back to dreary England, and they were still safe in the old mansion in the countryside.

But a stray bomber had bombed the Professor Digory Kirke’s mansion in the winter of 1941, killing her two brothers, and younger sister. Somehow, she had survived, she still didn’t know how though. Susan had decided it was merely a cruel twist of fate, an irony of surviving all those wars in Narnia together only to lose them all by misfortune.

Her mother had died in the Blitz, in a hospital working as a nurse, her father had been killed later in the war, her cousins were lost, and her aunt and uncle killed.

She had been thirteen when she had joined up with the French Resistance, hadn’t even thought about it as she lied and declared herself seventeen; she had always looked mature for her age, so no one questioned it. She had gone to France without a clue what she was doing, and no idea how she was going to survive it, not that she had actually cared about surviving it. She had war experience, utilizing troops, moving people, and killing people, she rose through the ranks swiftly. Her French, impeccable, she spoke it like a local and sounded like she was from Normandy or the likes, her skills, flawless, lethal, dangerous, and her willingness to do whatever it took, unwavering.

When the war was over, she was eighteen, alive, and she hated it, hated them all, hated herself for living.

It hadn’t taken much for her to pack her bags, curse Aslan’s name and leave. There was nothing holding her to the ruination of Europe, and there was nothing for her in England.

Going to America had been as easy as breathing.

On the voyage there she had met an actress, former actress actually, Elizabeth Goldstein, a survivor of the internment camps. She had taken Susan under her wing, and in New York, life begun anew for Susan the Gentle, Susan of the Horn, former High Queen of Narnia, former resistance captain.

In New York she shed the name Susan Pevensie all together, it was just… too plain, too tame for her new beginning. Susan was the name of a woman who hoped to fall in love, to be a wife and mother, Susan was the name of a gentle woman who had had hopes and dreams of family and life. Susan was a name of a different woman, a woman who had loved freely and been loved in return, and it wouldn’t do anymore.

Elizabeth had helped her rebuild herself, giving Susan the name Ava Wood.

Ava, daring, seductive, wild Ava, it was everything Susan was not. Wood for how men’s pants would feel when taken under her spell, it was fitting, and she enjoyed it. Ava Wood became a Broadway star, ever wild and unpredictable, she went to clubs, went to work, smiled for the newsmen and let men think they ruled her world.

In 1947 she met him though, and oh how he turned her world upside down.

As a child she had read all the wild tales of the excavations in Egypt, it was interesting, different, and scandalous, unlike anything her life in London had had to offer. Peter would act them out; taking the role of the hero for himself, she remembered, and she would always play the daring heroine. Edmund always played the mysterious sheik of the stories, and Lucy just laughed at their antics.

The serialized tales: _The Lost Mummy_ by Jonathan Carnahan, were a delight she and her siblings had relished in. They were cheap, chapter by chapter, weekly stories in the papers, not proper novels.

Then she had met him, Alex O’Connell, as her co-star on her very first picture film in 1947, and he was… he was unlike anything she was expecting and exactly like the stories and films he had been in. Tall, dashing, ruffled blond hair, brilliant hazel eyes, and a strong jaw, he was exactly what she was expecting and yet so different. He was brash, crude, forthright, and downright rude, he irritated her on every level, and had her wanting to throttle him most of the time. However, there were times he was scholarly, intelligent, charming, and seductive, and those times she just wanted him.

Their marriage happened when she was just shy of twenty-one in the spring of 1949. His mother and she immediately hated each other.

Evelyn O’Connell though her a gold digger. She would admit that the O’Connell family fortune did hold a level of appeal but not as much as their family title or ties to distant royalty, that was what had Ava giggling for glee. Admittedly this was shallow, and she let Evelyn think she was using Alex for all those reasons, but Ava couldn’t stand Evelyn.

Evelyn O’Connell was this overly kind, curious, commanding, intimidating woman. She was the first female professor in her field, in the world, at Oxford no less. She studied Religion, Theology, wrote about Egypt and its history, was fluent in Arabic, Egyptian and Greek, Latin, and obscure tribal dialects of the region. She was also a leading archeologist on more than a dozen digs, with a reputation of the highest scruples. Evelyn’s husband, Rick, was a renown archeologist, as well as an intimidating war veteran with impeccable service records in the French Foreign Legion until he deserted because of an attack that slaughtered all of his men, somewhere in Egypt. They infuriated Ava and she hated them, she told Alex as much.

Evelyn had made the ultimatum that it was Alex either get his act together and not marry her, or he would be cut off.

Ava was genuinely surprised when he let them cut him off.

Standing on those steps of the courthouse with a marriage certificate in hand, she was stunned that she was Mrs. Alexander Rupert O’Connell, and he was none the wiser to her true identity as boring Susan Pevensie, merely enamored with her as Ava Wood.

She found herself pregnant before the year was out, much to her dismay; for she had dismissed the idea of children entirely.

Alex though was excited thinking this child would bridge the gap between them and his family, Ava was less than thrilled at the idea of have Evelyn O’Connell in her life again. Evelyn was everything Susan had once dreamt of being, and she hated the woman for how much she had when Susan had lost everything. Ava hated being reminded of Susan as a whole, and it made her hate Evelyn even more.

In June Ava gave birth to Alex’s and her daughter, Linda Lucy O’Connell. Less than a week later Alex was sent off to war leaving Ava with a newborn in their brownstone home.

Linda was a beautiful babe, thick black hair, and startling blue eyes.

Ava sent her husband pictures as frequently as she could. Ava loved her job, and her daughter, and for the first time ever she felt her life had a chance, she was even thinking to accept Evelyn and Rick into her life to appease Alex.

However, her newfound hope shattered in the autumn of 1952 when two US Army officials showed up on the steps of her brownstone to inform her that Alex had been killed in action. A two-year-old, green-eyed black-haired toddler on her hip, and a lucrative career, with new hopes for herself and her husband, and it all shattered at the news. For the fist time in seven years she felt like Susan Pevensie, and it shattered her. She hated this feeling, hated the hopelessness which flooded into her life as Ava Wood.

She threw herself headlong without reserve into a life as an actress. She remained mostly on Broadway, though she did take film contracts from time to time, keeping Linda close.

Linda grew into a stunning woman, more and more like Alex than any other person. Oh there were flashes of Peter in the girl’s smile, or Lucy’s laugh, or Edmund’s cunning. Ava saw a lot of what she had lost in Linda, and it terrified her. It enthralled her to see her daughter though, to see what Susan had lost wasn’t completely gone, though it wasn’t what Ava had imagined for herself or her daughter.

She told Linda stories of Narnia, wild tales involved Queens and Kings; she always left out Aslan because Ava hated that lion with a fiery passion she could never put into words. Linda had taken after her, though, and rather determinedly, with single minded focus decided upon becoming an actress. Ava had offered her daughter no aid in this pursuit though she gave her daughter all the support she could. Linda had talent, she had a lovely voice, and beauty that was almost unworldly.

In the autumn of 1967, Linda met Robert Williams, a law student at Columbia University. Ava did not mind the boy, he was soft spoken and pliable, not a lot of spine and easy for Linda to be around. He wasn’t a violent man, a drunk, a lewd leacher, gambler, or degenerate in any way, so Ava had accepted him. For a year they dated and when he proposed Linda had been excited.

Naturally came the plans for a huge Catholic wedding, Robert’s family was excited. Ava was less thrilled but excited all the same. She feared her daughter was too young, to willful to understand what a marriage truly was, for Ava had been the same way with Alex and it had not been fair to Alex. Thoughts of Alex had Ava reaching out with great reluctance to the O’Connells, whom she hadn’t seen since the funeral in Arlington back in ’52.

They came for the wedding in 1969.

The wedding was a large affair, and looking at Evelyn and Rick, Ava felt a twinge of regret for hating what they had, that they worked to keep and what mattered to them. Ava hated the envy she felt about it, and hated how she had torn apart their relationship with Alex because she couldn’t stand the idea of being a part of another family that might be torn away from her.

Evelyn and Rick had been charmed by Linda, who was curious about them, but rather dismissive about their presence as a whole. Linda’s attitude about her father’s family actually upset Ava deeply, because Alex had wanted so badly for them to bridge a gap between his parents and them with Linda’s aid.

Ava had been amazed when Robert Williams had connected so well with Evelyn and Rick, who became rather besotted with the young, new lawyer.

It warmed Susan’s dead heart a little, and it broke Ava’s heart a little.

There were times when Ava slowed down enough with her life to feel like she was being torn apart by all the façades and personas she had adopted, and she could never quite remember who she was or who she ought to be. High Queen Susan of the Radiant Southern Sun, Susan the Gentle, Susan of the Horn or Susan Pevensie, second child of the Pevensie siblings or Commander Susan Pevensie of the Rebels, Nazis killer, Artemis of the Wood or Ava Wood, Broadway star and Hollywood Starlet. She never knew who she was supposed to be anymore, or who she was, merely that she was, and she didn’t desire to be anymore.

In November of 1971 her first grandchild was born in her brownstone while she was performing Camelot on Broadway.

She had returned home to find Robert and Linda struggling to keep Linda and the baby alive while waiting for an ambulance for a baby that was premature by two months. Old instincts of Susan the Gentle kicked in for Ava and she took over. She had never been a healer like Lucy, but she had paid a lot of attention when her sister had been learning and perfecting the healing arts.

Sarah Jennifer Williams was born at the witching hour, eyes unnervingly green and hair black as night with skin the color of crème. There was something about that newborn in Ava’s arms which made her think she was holding a princess or queen-to-be. There was something commanding about the small baby which stole her heart.

Ava Wood was enamored with her granddaughter and took every opportunity she wasn’t on stage or in a picture film to be with her granddaughter. Sarah saw the world differently, so differently, and it brought something to life within Ava that had died back in 1941 with that bomb on her family.

Like Lucy, Sarah is kind and thoughtful, like Edmund, Sarah is witty and cunning, like Peter, Sarah is decisive and confident, like Alex though, Sarah is wild and reckless. But like Susan, Sarah is gentle and ruthless, which scared Ava to see again. However, mostly, like Ava, Sarah is flamboyant and cruel, not cruel in a sense of cruelty to others, but the girl is selfish and more than willing to take what she believes is hers and cut down anyone who stands between her and her prize. The girl is utterly ruthless in any game and exceptionally competitive, a trait from Alex no doubt. Ava sees other things about Sarah Williams too which startle her, the intelligence from Evelyn, the loyalty from Rick, the creative way to spin a story is something Alex said his Uncle John had. There is little about the girl which makes one see Robert Williams as her sire and father, she doesn’t look like she is Robert’s daughter, nor does she share any mannerisms of his.

Ava though saw that Robert loved his daughter, loved her more than anything in his life, which Ava also saw made Linda jealous.

In 1981, Ava was startled to learn the true extent of daughter’s dubious nature. Linda was not an unkind or uncaring person, just rather selfish, and Ava blamed herself for that trait being her daughter’s. In 1981 Linda ran off with Rockstar-Hollywood star, Jeremy Winters, it was a dramatic affair as Linda was a rather successful Broadway Starlet as it was.

Susan and Ava have never been one in the same, not truly until that day when Linda tore apart her family. Again. Ava sat with Sarah as her granddaughter wept uncontrollably, and accepted the tea served by Evelyn who had flown in while Rick consoled Robert in the backyard of the house. Ava was done, she retired from fame and settled in Saugerties with her ex-son-in-law and granddaughter, settling for a small apartment and a job as a local seamstress, she had contracts with Broadway theatres even and made a living out of the spotlight for the first time since 1946.

In 1983 she hired Irene Thompson to work with her in her shop. It had not taken long for Robert and Irene to fall for each other and for Sarah to hate Irene. In 1984 Robert and Irene married, and Sarah declared Irene the evil stepmother. Ava was startled at such a declaration and then woefully ashamed of her granddaughter’s behavior. Especially when Irene gotten pregnant.

Ava was excited, though she was furious with Sarah, the girl was acting like a spoiled brat.

In the spring of 1985 Tobias Frederick Williams was born, Ava was with Sarah in the waiting room. Sarah looked at the newborn with disgust while Ava was enthralled, and amazed when both Irene and Robert introduced her to Toby as Grandma Ava, without even skipping a beat. Ava was enchanted.

Surprisingly, Evelyn and Rick flew out for Tobias’ birth and were also enthralled. She was surprised at how Robert allowed them to name themselves Tobias’ family as well.

It took Sarah about a year to accept Tobias, though the acceptance the teen had though was like a flip of the switch, she had gone from resenting Toby to almost mothering him, making certain Toby was happy, healthy, safe.

Ava was thrilled about that.

She supposed Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and Alex would’ve also been amazed by the change in Sarah. And she never questioned it. Whatever had made her granddaughter change had also made her granddaughter more reserved, more solemn, more graceful, and thoughtful, but also just more regal. Ava was surprised at her granddaughter’s change. It was like Sarah had just woken up fully matured and adult, like she was a queen and just waiting for the world to realize it. Susan was unnerved about her granddaughter’s change and wanted to know if Aslan had dared to touch her grandchild.

There was never a true chance to interrogate Sarah about what had happened to change her so, not for Ava.

In 1988, after dropping Robert, Irene, Sarah, and Toby off at JFK so they could fly to London for Robert’s new job, Ava was killed with a head on from a semi five miles from Saugerties, New York. The last thing Ava saw was headlights coming straight at her as she tried to get her car out of the way.

Susan woke in the fields of Narnia and peered up when a shadow fell over her.

“You know the Egyptians believed the Field of Reeds to be the final destination for granting rebirth,” a cocky voice with an Oxfordshire’s clipped accent and Chicago’s sharp vowels which had her looking up at her husband. “Been a while, Queenie.”

“I hate it when you call me that,” she huffed in annoyance as he offered her a hand up.

“Well, Queenie, something you want to tell me?” he asked.

“Whatever would I want to tell you?” she demanded haughtily.

“A little something like a name would be lovely, love, or do you not think so?” he drawled out as he eyed her curiously with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“I am Susan Pevensie, High Queen of Narnia, also known as Susan the Gentle and Susan of the Horn. I am Susan Pevensie sister of Peter, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, Rebel in the French Resistance. And I am Ava Wood, Broadway Star, Hollywood Starlet, wife of Lord Alex O’Connell, mother of his only child, and grandmother to Sarah Williams, and Tobias Williams,” she said softly. The wind pulled her ebony locks and she stared at him as she bit her lip.

“Pleasure to meet you, love,” he smiled. “Alex O’Connell, explorer extraordinaire, soldier, and mummy slayer,” he offered.

“You forgot Hollywood Star,” she quipped.

“No doubt, no come on, love, there’s folks wanting to meet you again, I just volunteered to get you,” he said slinging an arm around her shoulders. She was amazed as she found herself with a husband, she never got a chance to love to the fullest.

“Susan!” Lucy shouted.

“About time!” Edmund complained.

“Oh hush,” Peter ordered smacking Edmund up the back side of the head. “You had to marry a yank?”

“He was from Oxfordshire,” she retorted as she drew nearer to Peter.

Alex laughed. “You’re just in time,” he murmured in her ear.

“For what?”

“To watch our family, turn the world on it’s head,” he chuckled as he kissed her temple. “Save you a front row seat too, love.”


End file.
